Message processing system

ABSTRACT

A message processing system, including an e-mail server for receiving and storing e-mails for a recipient, and an e-mail manager for processing e-mails for a recipient to determine if the e-mails are approved based on stored criteria, sending approved e-mails for the recipient to a location for access by the recipient, and storing and sending a notification to the recipient of unapproved messages.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.10/009,575, filed Aug. 6, 2002, which is the U.S. National Phase ofInternational Application No. PCT/AU00/00454, filed May 12, 2000, all ofwhich are incorporated by reference in their entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a message handling process and amessage processing system, which may be used to deal with unsolicitedand unapproved electronic messages.

2. Description of the Related Art

Electronic messaging, particularly the use of e-mail over the Internet,has been enthusiastically adopted by large numbers of people, who havetaken advantage of the inherent efficiencies and convenience ofelectronic messaging. One unfortunate consequence of Internet e-mail,however, has been the proliferation of unsolicited and unwanted e-mailmessages, often referred to as “spam”, which people receive. Variousmethods have been developed to restrict or prevent spam from reachingintended recipients. The methods have included both technical and legalmeasures which to date have met with mixed results. None have eliminatedthe problem of spam, nor prevented “spammers” from sending theirmessages and seeking to subvert the measures.

One of the technical measures includes applying a spam filter whichprocesses an incoming message to determine whether it should forwardedto the recipient or not. The disadvantage associated with such filtersis that inevitably useful messages for the recipient are inadvertentlyfiltered and never received.

It is desired to provide a method and system which provides a usefulalternative or which allows management of unsolicited messages withoutseeking to simply restrict or filter incoming messages.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a message handling process, including:

determining if a message is approved for the recipient of the message;

processing the message for subsequent viewing by the recipient if themessage is approved; and

notifying the recipient and storing the message if the message isunapproved.

The present invention also provides a message processing system,including:

means for determining if a message is approved for the recipient of themessage;

means for processing the message for subsequent viewing by the recipientif the message is approved; and

means for notifying the recipient and storing the message if the messageis unapproved.

The present invention also provides a message processing system,including:

an electronic message server for receiving and storing electronicmessages for a recipient; and

an electronic message manager for processing electronic messages for arecipient to determine if the electronic messages are approved based onstored criteria, sending approved electronic messages for the recipientto a location for access by the recipient, and storing and sending anotification to the recipient of unapproved messages.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A preferred embodiment of the present invention is hereinafterdescribed, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanyingdrawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a preferred embodiment of a messageprocessing system connected to a communications network; and

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram of the message handling process executed by themessage processing system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

A message processing system 2, as shown in FIG. 1, is provided by acomputer which may be a Unix server. The system 2 includes standard webserver software 8 and e-mail server software 12 so that the system 2 canoperate as a web server and can also operate as an e-mail server, i.e. astandard POP3/SMTP/IMAP e-mail server. The system 2 also includes e-mailmanager software 10 stored on the server which includes program code anddatabase code that establishes a database on the server 2. The code ofthe manager 10 causes the system to execute the message handling stepsdescribed below. Although shown on one machine, it will be understood bythose skilled in the art that software components 8, 10 and 12 of thesystem 2 can be distributed amongst a number of machines in differentlocations, provided the components 8, 10 and 12 can communicate with oneanother, as shown in FIG. 1. Also it will be understood that the e-mailmanager could be provided at least in part by application specificintegrated circuits (ASICs) which execute the steps of the messagehandling process.

A user of the system 2 is able to access the system 2 via acommunications network 4 using a standard computer 6 with a web browser.The communications network 4 may be, for example, the Internet or a LAN.For instance, the system 2 may be part of a corporate intranet, and actas a gateway for the intranet to the Internet. The system 2 may also becontrolled by a service provider simply providing an e-mail service viathe Internet. The service provider can then service any users which canconnect via the Internet, including the users of corporate networks.Users, including companies, which use the system are registered andidentified as being users by the e-mail manager 10. All e-mails for theusers are then directed to the system 2.

The message handling method executed by the system 2, and in particularthe manager 10, is shown in FIG. 2. For incoming e-mails received by thesystem 2 for the users, at step 14, the manager 10 determines, at step16, whether the e-mail message is approved. Approval of an e-mailmessage can be based on a number of criteria, with the simplest beingwhether the sender of the message is on a list of approved senders forthe intended recipient that is stored on the database of the e-mailmanager 10. If the message is approved at step 16, a forward procedureis executed and a determination is made at step 17 as to whether therecipient collects e-mail messages from the e-mail server 12 directly.If so, the message is stored on the server 12 at step 20 for retrievalfrom the e-mail server 12 in the normal manner. Otherwise the e-mailserver 12 forwards the message to the recipient's e-mail server at step22 via the communications network 4.

If it is determined at step 16 that the message is not approved, thenthe system 2 notifies the recipient, at step 18, that it has disalloweda received message for the recipient. The recipient can be notified by anumber of communications methods, such as by e-mail or by a telephonecall over the network 4. On receipt of the notification at step 18, therecipient can direct their web browser to the web server 8 and view alist of disallowed messages. From the list, the user can execute anumber of actions, such as read the message, select a sender of amessage to be added to the approved list stored by the manager 10 orsimply delete messages.

At step 18, the sender of an e-mail that has been disallowed by thesystem 2 is notified by e-mail that their message has been held in apending mailbox because they were not on the recipient's list ofauthorised e-mail senders. The sender is also informed by e-mail that ifthey wish to ensure that the recipient reads the e-mail, the sendershould use other means, such as telephone, to inform the recipient thatthey have been sent an e-mail and ask that the recipient add thesender's e-mail address to the recipient's list of authorised senders.

The manager 10 uses the e-mail server 12 to send the notifications atstep 18 by e-mail, and the e-mail for the recipient includes a URL forthe web server 8. A recipient can then respond to the notification byselecting the URL and pointing the browser to the web server 8. Themanager 10 determines at step 24, after a predetermined period of time,whether or not the recipient has ignored the notification sent bye-mail. If the notification is ignored, the system 2 sends a returne-mail, at step 26, notifying the sender that the sent message has notbeen the read by the recipient. The message is then deleted at step 30.

If the recipient responds to the e-mail notification so as to direct therecipient's browser to the system 2, the browser communicates with theweb server 8 which sends a web page, designated by the URL. The web pagedisplays a list of messages not approved by the manager 10 with therecently sent message being highlighted or selected. The e-mail manager10 then enters a loop 50 which allows a number of functions to beexecuted. At step 28 the manager 10 determines whether the recipient hasselected on the web page an option to add the sender of the highlightedmessage to the approved list maintained by the manager 10. If not,operation of the manager 10 proceeds to step 32, otherwise the manager10 will update the recipient's approved list to add the sender, at step34, and then proceed to step 32. At step 32, the e-mail manager 10determines whether the recipient has chosen an option on the web page toread the highlighted message, and if not, operation proceeds to step 31.Otherwise, the message is displayed at step 36 for the recipient'sbrowser, and operation proceeds to step 31. At step 31, the managerdetermines whether the recipient has selected an option on the web pageto save the highlighted or read message, and if so, operation proceedsto step 33 to save the message. At step 33, the forward procedure iscalled to execute step 17 for the message and proceed to either step 20or 22 to save the message and then return to the loop 50. At step 35,the manager 10 determines whether the recipient has selected an optionto delete the highlighted or read message. If so, the message is deletedat step 37, and operation returns to the loop 50. At step 39, adetermination is made, based on activity of the recipient, as to whetherthe recipient has directed its browser away from or closed the web page,and if so, the loop 50 is exited and operation ends at step 40.

The manager 10 also executes scheduled tasks 42 to delete unapprovedmessages on which no action has been taken by recipients for apredetermined period of time, and notify senders as in step 26.Alternatively, the scheduled tasks may be set for a recipient so thatunapproved messages on which no action has been taken for apredetermined period of time are stored or saved automatically bycalling the forward procedure to execute step 17 and proceed to eitherstep 20 or 22.

The above system 2 and management method are particularly advantageousas they provide users with the capability to manage unsolicited orunapproved e-mail messages without having the messages inadvertentlyremoved by a message filter. The management facilities provided by thesystem 2 are web browser based, and provides significant additionalmanagement services to users of browser based e-mail services, such asthose provided by Hotmail and Yahoo.

Many modifications will be apparent to those skilled in the art withoutdeparting from the scope of the present invention as herein describedwith reference to the accompanying drawings.

What is claimed is:
 1. A message handling process, including:determining if a message is approved for the recipient of the message;processing the message for subsequent viewing by the recipient if themessage is approved; and notifying the recipient and storing the messageif the message is unapproved.